Paid family leaves means you'll still be paid while taking time off to navigating family changes and emergencies (babies, medical issues, etc.). But in America, paid leave is almost nonexistent, and that's a huge problem. Director Ky Dickens, our guest this week, set out to shine a light on this critical issue with her newest film, "Zero Weeks," after having a child of her own.

Time for a somber reflection. What? You knew this was coming. Even John has been pretty optimistic lately. Now it's time to ask how parenting affects our kids and the concept they have of how they fit into our bad moods.

This week, we're joined by Mike Salguero, founder of Butcher Box and father to three girls who are three and under. How does he help families enjoy humanely-raised and independently-farmed meat delivered right to the doorstep while helping wrangle three kids? Honestly, we have no idea, but we tried to find out.

Heather is writing a book! It's not out until February 2019, but it's about depression, a clinical trial that changed her life, and dying. Because, oh yeah, Heather died a few times to get to get better. Turns out there's a way to do that! And John has kept it a secret this whole time. A keeper, that one.

We recorded on Dec. 5 and woke up the next day to see that Time's Person of the Year 2017 is "The Silence Breakers." We're happy to add our voices to this important conversation. Everywhere you turn, it seems another high-profile man is being taken down by sexual harassment. "Keep your hands to yourself" should be easy enough, but it seems many men missed that basic life lesson. Now we're thinking about how to approach the subject with our kids.

Holiday advice from MRS: Don't make it your goal to ruin Thanksgiving with politics. Be open, be kind, and lead by example. However, we definitely took a low-road detour this time around, so that statement is a little hypocritical. Thanks for sticking with us, everyone!

Kids are assholes. Okay, that's probably a bit of a sweeping statement but, when your child is faced with bullies, it's the first thing that comes to mind. And it brings back a flood of memories about how hard life can be when you're an insecure 13 year old who's just trying to figure things out.

John is back from Hong Kong, and we're talking travel, jet lag, basic airplane courtesy, and service jobs. Why service jobs? Because they're rough, people can be terrible, and we've both been there so we totally get it.

Teaching kids about finances is important and usually the best way to do that is to demonstrate budget-savvy behavior. But that's not always easy. And sometimes it's a unique challenge when you're self employed.

From charities and organizations to individual creative pursuits and business startups, you can give money to a lot of different things. This week we're talking about how and where we give and why we're bringing MRS to Patreon. So tell us: Where should MRS go from here?

Manic Rambling Spiral (MRS) is a podcast about single parenting but it's not a parenting podcast. Rather, MRS is a podcast about living life - having a life, a career, and a self - in a setting that is constantly dictated by, built around and sabotaged by our children.

We will always be thankful for the help we received from CANIDAE® when launching this project.